


Namárië

by uumuu



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Inspired by Music, Matricide, Mild Blood, Quenya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-27 14:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2697179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumuu/pseuds/uumuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A definitive goodbye between Nerdanel and one of her sons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Goodbye

He couldn't say why he had done it. He recalled the state of mind, and the sentiments, that had steered his hand distinctly, but he wasn't sure what he had meant to achieve, if anything at all. How to adequately interpret the act, if there was a way to frame such an act. 

The truth was he felt nothing. 

He wondered what his father's reaction would have been, if he had known. If he would have been angry, or shocked. How it would have felt if the news had gladdened him. All in all, he supposed it would have been best if he had been indifferent, too.

They were so alike in mood, after all. She had often said it, and detested him for it. She had tried to hide it of course. Her child, the fruit of her womb, whom she could never bring herself to love after he reached adulthood and displayed traits that reminded her too keenly of what she didn't like in her husband. 

He hadn't been excessively bothered by the realisation that his mother didn't love him, by how her face hardened every time she heard him raise his voice, even in jest. 

They had carried on a pretence of affection. It had lasted until she had left. In rejecting his father, discounting what he felt and believed on account of her own beliefs, of her pious idea that everything could always be mended, that one mustn't stop trusting the Valar, she rejected him as well, who felt like his father and had in him a friend, too.

She never attempted to come back once she had made her affiliation clear. 

She should have left it at that. Two of his brothers shared his indifference towards her. The others, though more attached to her, were inflexibly set on following their father. There was no reason for her to come looking for them, in what had once been their home, half emptied when they had left for Formenos, and now further despoiled in view of their definitive departure. 

He came across her by chance, as he advanced circumspectly in the starlit-darkness through the garden, for the very last time. His prime instinct, when he caught a flicker of the copper of her hair in the light of the lamp she carried, was that he had to keep her away from his father. _You left, you can't presume to obtrude on him now._

“Your father is not in his right mind, can you not see this will all lead you to ruin and disgrace? Can you really not see reason?”

Of course he knew his father was not well, he knew it much better than she did. His father who raged, and looked to him like a personification of his own rage. His father who didn't sleep unless his sons were all there with him. His father who had kept loving parents who didn't deserve half of his love. 

“We should all be just pawns to your wisdom, shouldn't we?” he spat. “Leave.”

She didn't leave, she made to brush past him.

He lifted his sword. After the attack on Formenos, they didn't just don it, they would have it unsheathed, or rest their hands over the hilt, at all times. He lifted it, and drove it through her chest, in a deft movement that came to him effortlessly. He wouldn't carry the same burden as his father. He was ready to fight for him, because it would be fighting for himself too. He wouldn't let this woman who had borne him and done little else for him drag him down. 

He pulled his sword out. She stood silent, eyes bulging in a surprise so utter no measure of wisdom could have filled it. The light of the lamp that had fallen from her hand lighted her from below, and the red of her hair mingled with the red flowing out of her wound. She staggered. He didn't want her to suffer needlessly, he didn't want her face to twist and tighten like his grandfather's face had, so he slipped his sword under her chin, and sliced her neck open, too.

She collapsed, wheezed a few blood-sputtering breaths. Her right an arm rose shakily towards him. He took her hand. It was a small gesture of sympathy she had done nothing to deserve, and he couldn't help but think she had indeed been right. He was too much like his father, but more radical than him, since his father hadn't truly killed his mother; he had done all he could to keep her alive, even if it had only hurt him).

“Namárië,” he said, as she expired, unsure if she heard or not, and let go of her hand.

He closed her dilated eyes, fixed unseeing above her (but there was only darkness to see), and arranged her body among the withered grass, where flowers had once been. The lamp he left beside her head. The lamp would never fade, and it would help people find her, if they ventured to look among the dead shrubbery.

As he stood back up, he felt heat on his left cheek, and knew that it was her blood. Sprinkled with it, his face was truly red for the first time.

_Is this what you saw when you named me? Did your foresight warn you?_

He didn't really care about the answer that would never come. He simply felt his mother-name was appropriate, for the first time. 

*

He didn't tell his brothers. They didn't ask about the red droplets staining his collar. They were hard to spot in the darkness, and maybe they all realised, in a newly unfurled layer of consciousness, that blood was going to stick to them when nothing else would.

Curufinwë knew. His gaze made it clear, and he nodded to Carnistir sternly. His father was his core, what determined him. His mother could have been anybody, and it would have made little difference. She herself had consigned him to his father, even in name. She had ceased to be meaningful to him when she had no longer been there for his father. He too would not carry unnecessary burdens. 

Macalaurë guessed easily. He didn't say anything, but he sang a song, a lullaby, and once again Carnistir was impressed, and somewhat perturbed, by his perspicacity (Macalaurë, he was sure, didn't parse thoughts, he dissected souls). The melody was simple, droning, but it captured his state of mind, his abiding mother-lethargy, with cutting precision.

_Sin lirilla holtien hendutya_  
_I illumë nattirnen tyë nánë_  
_Uan felë faren tyenna nyényen_  
_Sin lirilla holtien hendutya_

_Namárië._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I consider the matricide part to be AU, the sentiments expressed are pretty much part of my headcanon for all characters involved.


	2. Room of Angel

The song Maglor sings, and which spawned this thing, is [Room of Angel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1c6fiCcveA), with lyrics by Joe Romersa/Hiroyuki Owaku.

The Quenya translation is by me. It's rather approximate, given unavoidable vocabulary issues, and it isn't very poetic, either, but I did my best.

Caitëat, quildëa tanomë pó nyë  
Niëtyar, lá valdië nin  
I þúrë, húnala henetessë  
I melmë ya únët anta  
Tyen antan  
Acca olya tyen  
Mal sí, ëa munta ya polit carë  
Etta á humë, erya enyalietyassë nyëo  
Ammenya ammoina

Sin lirilla holtien hendutya  
Namárië  
I illumë nattirnen tyë nánë  
Uan felë faren tyenna nyényen  
Sin lirilla holtien hendutya  
Namárië

Ta faica, lóralya murmëa núra nyessë  
Ma nurtëat, úna, nu i cemen?  
Cé vílala tára, i fanyassen?  
Cé tyë alassëa ú nyëo  
Erdi únótimë rernë i restassë  
Ar manen ecë tuia ta almárëavë  
Qui firin nánen, únë lúmë nyérëo  
Úvat hlarë i quetin "avatyara"  
Massë i cálë, cé niëssen

 


End file.
